VW considers works council for Tenn. Plant

Christine Tierney / The Detroit News

Posted:
03/15/2013 01:12:49 PM MDT

Updated:
03/15/2013 11:57:16 PM MDT

Wolfsburg, Germany -- Volkswagen AG is considering installing a German-style works council, possibly in tandem with the United Auto Workers union, at its Chattanooga, Tenn., plant, a senior company official said Friday.

The Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker expects to reach a decision by mid-year whether to establish a works council at its only U.S. assembly plant, Horst Neumann, the company's top human resources manager, told reporters.

In Germany, all categories of employees -- white-collar as well as blue -- elect representatives, who may have a union affiliation but not necessarily, to work councils. The locally-based councils operate alongside Germany's powerful national unions, which negotiate minimum wages and other industry-wide terms.

Establishing a works council on its own, without a union, could expose VW to legal complications, Neumann said. In the U.S., "the UAW would be the natural union," he said, noting that VW and the UAW have been in informal talks.

The UAW represented VW's last, now closed, U.S. plant in Westmoreland, Pa.

With blue-collar employment down sharply at Detroit's automakers, the UAW is trying hard to organize a transplant, as the foreign-owned car-assembly plants are called. It is targeting Nissan Motor Co.'s plant in Canton, Miss.

UAW President Bob King seems interested in the German approach to organized labor, said Neumann, a member of VW's management board.

"At VW, we are not against workers' representation," he said.

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Under German law, unions have a strong presence on the supervisory boards -- roughly equivalent to U.S. boards of directors -- of big German companies.

For now, VW is discussing setting up a works council in the U.S. with its legal advisers.

If it goes ahead with the plan, Neumann said, the automaker could begin talks with a U.S. union in the second half of the year.